265 Chapter 265: Retrea

The poor ninjas were all forced to dive for cover or risk getting incinerated by the newly appeared Vermillion Phoenix. While they were distracted, Lilith and I took advantage of the inferno that had now consumed the whole of the clearing and used it to cover our escape. Summoning Cygnus and Pegasus, I jumped atop the white swan while gesturing for Lilith to ride the winged horse. The silver-blond fire mage did not hesitate, vaulting over a fallen, charred tree trunk to hop onto Pegasus and rode him as naturally as if she had been riding horses for years.

Knowing the Porter clan and how they were one of the ten great families, I wouldn't be surprised if she had indeed been trained in such luxurious activities. Yeah, only the rich could dream of doing something as niche as horse-riding. As for me, I had a horrible experience riding Pegasus every single time, back when I was following Dad to the mountains outside Sakha City, and when I was trying to rescue Lilith earlier during the Spiritual Road training camp. Despite the discomfort, I went and summoned Pegasus because firstly, I had to do the mandatory "summon a new Constellation spirit thing" (got to summon them all!) and secondly, because one of my readers really, really wanted to see Pegasus show up because he was his favorite Constellation or something. I was obligated to respond to the requests of readers, so I threw in a cameo. Well…actually, I had Pegasus show up outside Sakha City before the request was ever made, but I decided to have him show up a couple more times after that because of the reader.

Anyway, the point was that, without training and whatever, I wasn't used to riding a horse and it felt extremely uncomfortable for me. Not to mention, it was a little embarrassing how I almost mishandled Pegasus. I was better off riding on Cygnus where I didn't need to learn the necessary horse-riding skills that so many nobles practiced during their excessive free time.

"Don't let them get away!"

"Fuck!"

"AAAAARGH!"

Even though they were desperately trying to pursue us, Lilith's Hellfire Bear and my Vermillion Phoenix covered our retreat, bathing the pursuers in superheated flames. A couple of them were roasted alive, their skin blackening and their flesh melting right off, and the rest wisely backed off. Vermillion Phoenix then soared after us, while the Hellfire Bear dropped onto its haunches and ran on all fours to keep up with its mistress. We weren't going to dismiss them just yet because they were vital to covering our retreat.

And then…we were gone. Just like that. Leaving the ninjas far behind, the poor dudes gagging and coughing on the smoke (if they would only succumb to smoke inhalation, but that was probably asking for too much), we plunged deeper into the forest. A few monsters raised their heads and snarled, a few getting ready to pounce on us, but either the Hellfire Bear almost casually batted them aside with its flaming paw or my Vermillion Phoenix incinerated them with a single flap of his wings. The other monsters cleverly retreated and got out of our way when they realized they were outmatched by the immense Soul Beasts.

"I've always been meaning to ask you." Lilith was leaning forward as she rode Pegasus hard, but she glanced up at me. "Did your father teach you to summon that Vermillion Phoenix?"

"No."

"…interesting. You do realize that the Vermillion Phoenix is the symbol and mascot for the Porter clan, right?"

"Not at all." Maybe I was vaguely aware of it, especially after Dad's super-long flashback arc, but I honestly couldn't care less. I only cared about being able to summon the four Celestial Guardians. Well, five, but I had yet to find a way to fit the fifth and last Celestial Guardian in, especially when I considered that he didn't have a constellation like the other four. For your information, only the four Celestial Guardians – Vermillion Phoenix of the South, Black Tortoise of the North, White Tiger of the West, and Green Dragon of the East – had constellations dedicated to them. Unfortunately, the Golden Kirin of the Center was less well-known and often neglected. For the sake of the Five Elements principle, he was often added as the Celestial Guardian that embodied Earth, but otherwise he wasn't really considered as one of the Celestial Guardians for the purpose of Constellations.

That made it so much more difficult for me to conceive and summon him. Like I said before, even if summoning was imagination-based, it was not as omnipotent, imbalanced or broken as people perceived it to be. I couldn't simply imagine something and expect to summon it. There were a lot of limitations built into the system, otherwise everyone would become a summoner if the system was that open to abuse. I couldn't simply go, "hey, I want a healing Soul Beast!" and then summon a Soul Beast capable of casting healing spells. The Soul Beasts I created and conceived were entirely dependent on the magic I was capable of casting.

That was why I spent a year or so to master the summoning spells of all four Celestial Guardians – it wasn't simply to create them, it was also to learn the basic five elements necessary to pave the foundation to summoning them. Readers erroneously thought I spend a year and ninety-nine matches losing despite already being able to summon all four Celestial Guardians, but they were mistaken. I only managed to finally master the summoning of those four near the end of the year, after I already lost eighty or so matches.

"Your Green Dragon too…that's the symbol and mascot of the Stuart clan. And your techniques are very similar to the swordsmanship used by Cecilia and her father. How are you able to learn the method of summoning the four Celestial Beasts that are supposedly the representatives of four of the ten Great Families?"

"Lady, anyone can learn how to summon them. Just read the book, The Celestial Creatures and how to summon them, written by Huang Zhan Ming. I borrowed it from my school library. Anyone can pick it up and learn how to summon the Celestial Guardians. In fact, your family and the other clans probably based your inherited techniques on these traditional concepts, but chose to specialize on a single element and its corresponding Celestial Guardian, and took that magic to the utmost pinnacle. You don't monopolize the Celestial Guardians, you only hold the right to claim that you're the ones capable of summoning the most powerful versions, and the family of mages who are the strongest in their respective elemental field. I can guarantee you that my Vermillion Phoenix is probably a lot weaker than your family's version of Vermillion Phoenix, especially since I diluted my elemental spells by broadening out and learning only the basic ones."

That was the weakness of lacking a specialization. I was pretty much a jack of all trades and a master of none. Quantity over quality. Against a true master, I would find myself far more inferior. The only thing I had going for me was my versatility and flexibility. And no, please don't make any Versatile Mage jokes. I guarantee that I was nowhere as strong as Mo Fan, who could master each and every of his elements to their peaks despite having so many of them.

It sucked, but that was reality. I wasn't a genius. Then again, it was precisely because I wasn't a genius that I had to find some way of competing with them. If I couldn't measure up to them in their respective elemental fields, then I would just outnumber them by having access to more elements than them!

Or that was my reasoning anyway.

I wasn't sure if Lilith bought my explanation, but I couldn't care less if she believed me or not. It was not my job to persuade her. Fortunately, she didn't argue and had chosen to fall silent. That made my life easier.

We rode on in silence for a few more minutes, and then Lilith suddenly perked up.

"They're coming. A small group of them…maybe five."

That made sense. The fastest ones would have gone ahead of the group and catch up with us. They specialized in speed and tracking, after all.

It also meant that this was an opportunity to shake off our pursuers and throw them off our trail. If we got rid of these guys and then made our escape, the main body of the group wouldn't be able to track us. They would just find their defeated comrades while having no way to track us down. Actually, they wouldn't even find their defeated comrades…because I would be taking their blood tokens and forcibly teleporting them out of the Spiritual Road.

"What is it?" Lilith asked, noticing my grin. I turned toward her with a smirk and pushed my glasses up, the lenses gleaming sinisterly.

"I have a plan."

*

The five ninjas burst into the clearing, and despite sprinting nonstop at incredible speeds, they showed no sign of exhaustion or breathlessness. With their physical reinforcement spells and Spartan training, they were capable of running at top speed for hours on end.

They would have been a truly annoying foe if I didn't come up with the proper countermeasures.

"Where did they go?" one of the ninjas demanded as he glanced around. The trail had ended here, and their senses had informed them that we had stopped here. They had also seen my Cygnus and Vermillion Phoenix descend into this clearing, and the fires flickering out naturally. Even so, they could detect our mana signatures here.

But we were nowhere to be seen.

"Fuck! How did we lose them?!"

"This isn't possible! They have to be around here somewhere!"

"Shut up!" the leader snapped at them. As expected of someone of his position, he was the calmest and most composed. "All of you, spread out immediately and begin searching! They can't be far from here! They should have left tracks behind!"

"Yes, sir!"

The four subordinates immediately obeyed and dispersed to search the area. The leader followed shortly, stepping into the clearing and cautiously looking around. Being one of the brightest of his generation, he wasn't stupid. The hair on the back of his neck was standing and he had a niggling suspicion that his scout team was walking straight into a trap.

"Be careful!" he ordered, a tad hastily. "If you sense anything wrong, pull back immediately!"

"Understood!"

Satisfied, the leader took another step forward. He knelt down to survey the ground, looking for any signs that Lilith and I might have left behind.

Then I sprang the trap.

"!!!!"

All five ninjas, credit to them, moved reflexively and jumped back when they sensed a shift in the air. However, it was too late. They had strode right into the trap I had prepared for them.

Garrote wires wrapped around them, entangling them and slicing deeply into their skin. Almost like a massive net, the thin, almost invisible wires closed in on them, tying them up in a bundle and sent blood splashing across the ground. It was only because of their physical reinforcement spells that they weren't cut into pieces the moment I sprang my ambush.

"Fuck!"

The leader, being the most cautious of them and also the one who was at the edge, was somehow able to escape. He cast his spell, which was a terrible typhoon that forcibly tossed the garrote wires off him. He seized the opportunity to dive out of the trap without any hesitation and rolled away to a safe distance.

"Help!"

The leader helplessly glanced up at the cry of his comrades and saw that they were being crushed and gradually cut apart by the tightening garrote wires. Mana exploded around him as he rose to his feet and bellowed.

"WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!"

"Here." I stepped out of my hiding place, Lyra in my hand. The golden harp gleamed brilliantly, the thousands of strands of razor-sharp wires trailing from it. With a twitch of my fingers, I increased the pressure, and despite their physical reinforcement spells and protective magical aura, the four subordinates shrieked in pain as the cuts got deeper and almost reached to the bone.

"Let them go!" Even as he yelled that, the leader knew the most effective way of freeing his subordinates was to eliminate me and he lunged forward while drawing his glowing combat knives. Wind blades sailed across the clearing to strike me, but Scutum Sobiescianum materialized in front of me to deflect the deadly spells.

The leader scowled as he closed the distance between us, his eyes narrowed murderously and vengefully.

"Don't think you can hide behind that shield of yours!"

I merely smiled. "I don't have to."

"?!"

Lilith descended upon him, crashing upon the poor ninja scout leader and smashing him onto the ground. Even before the wind was completely knocked out of her victim, she stabbed downward with her flaming sword and pinned him to the ground.

"ARGH!"

The poor ninja scout leader hollered in pain and thrashed around desperately, but Lilith firmly held him to the ground.

"Let's not waste any time," I told her, and she nodded. While I approached my poor victims, who were completely immobilized and incapacitated by Lyra's wires, Lilith fished the ninja scout leader's blood token out of his pocket. I did the same, snaking my hand through the gaps between my Lyra's garrote wires and feeling their pockets.

Fortunately, it didn't take me long to locate all four blood tokens and requisition them. Stepping back, Lilith and I watched as all five ninja scouts disappeared from sight, forcibly teleported out of the Spiritual Road. They were left with grievous injuries, but at least their lives were intact. There was nothing that couldn't be fixed with a couple of healing spells. Probably the injury to their pride and egos would require some other type of treatment, but that was none of my business.

I nodded at Lilith, a broad smile spreading across my face.

"Let's get out of here before the rest of their group catches up."

"Roger that."

With that, the both of us disappeared from the clearing, and did our best not to leave any tracks behind.